Healing Tonics<br>By Jeanine Pollak<br>Storey Books, 155 pages<p>

Jeanine Pollak was 18 years old when she went on an herb walk--innorthern California, of course--which changed her life. "Suddenly, allthese little green things growing in the ground had names, uniquehistories and uses, and the potential to be enjoyed as food andtransformed into medicine." Some of these alternative-medicine recipes sound tasty, others resemble a real witch's brew.

The Pagan Punch, for example, uses calendula, meadowsweet and sweetwoodruff; the Tummy Love-Wine mixes white wine and fennel. Some recipes, like Susi's Sure to Cure You Chicken Soup, appear identical tonon-herbalist recipes. But the book is worth buying for Love Potion # 9Herbal Cordial alone, which mixes rose hips, hawthorne berries, and that perennial aphrodiasiac, brandy. Next time I've got my eye on a Puck, that's what I'll try--even if it's not magic, it sure seems like fun.